Need Some Help on Ceremony to Reception Transition

Wegl13 · May 2014

I am getting married in December, in South Alabama (kind of the middle of nowhere) in an old schoolhouse that used to be my fiancé'so grandfather's elementary school, and now doubles as a community center/church. It is going to be an afternoon wedding (2-5pm) with heavy apps and cake but no sit down meal. We are inviting 70 people.

Our problem is that we have just one large room for both the ceremony and reception. This room easily will hold everyone for the whole affair. The hallway outside of this room is large (at least 12 ft wide) and has some pews in it like benches, and the kitchen is ugly but has enough room to hold maybe 30-40 sitting down. But we are looking for good, comfortable ways to transition our guests from wedding to reception.

We will not change the venue- this place is very important to his family and is walking distance from his grandparents farm, where we got engaged (and also where we started dating).

We cannot change the date.

The closest place for a reception not at the schoolhouse is a 30 minute drive in the opposite direction from the way most of our guests will return home.

There is a larger town about 30-45 minutes back towards civilization that may have reception venues I have not checked out.

Ideas I have thought of:

1. Move guests into the hall, have coffee and light food with coffee at one end, place as many benches in the hall as humanly possible (probably enough for 30-40 to sit down without feeling crowded) and pay a catering service to make the fastest transition of setting up tables and bringing in cake and food known to man. People can also go outside if it is a decent day, which it might be. This would also involve us doing a first look and wedding party pictures beforehand, so the only photos being taken at this time would be the family group portraits (which I'm hoping to keep at less than 10 separate groups so it should take about 20 minutes if we are organized well).

2. Have the tables set up and have guests sit there during the wedding. This is not my favorite idea ever- I went to a wedding like this once and was very confused when we got to the venue and it was set up for a reception- I thought we had gone to the wrong place, started asking around, and then people thought I wasn't actually a guest. (I was a friend from college and most were family). Also the tables were close enough that when the bride walked in with her dad she bumped some of them.

3. Have the reception somewhere different and make people drive an ungodly long way, possibly in the wrong direction from home (we are going to reserve hotel rooms in that slightly larger town just In case family don't want to go all the way back home after the reception). I have already made my guests drive four hours or more to come to my wedding, I do not want to do this to them.

4. Limit the guest list to less than the 70 people (some are family and friends that I love and am close to but wasn't necessarily going to invite, but are expecting an invite and are going to be hurt without it) and have the wedding in one half of the large room, and the reception in the other half (not my first choice obviously).

Any additional ideas or thoughts (that don't involve changing the date or the venue because the venue is the one thing that my fiancé and his immediate family really care about) would be great. Pictures of hallway, the one big room, and the kitchen attached. Sorry for the poor quality.

JoanE2012 · May 2014

I would definitely not put people in the hallway during the transition. It looks cramped and I know I would get pretty claustrophobic with 70 people all squished in that small, narrow area.

The picture of the big room looks like it has a partition. Can you put the partition up and have the ceremony where the chairs are set up and then have some of the tables and food set up behind in the back area?

Then, when guests move to the back reception area, your hired help can quickly set up a few more tables in the ceremony area. It shouldn't take more than 15 minutes or so and then they can open the partition.

If the ceremony space where the chairs are in the picture is not big enough and you need to extend past the partition, I would create your own partition with curtains or panels.

Wegl13 · May 2014

That sounds like a great idea. Thank you!
For this plan- what do you do with people during that bit of a transition, though? There's a side door near the front and a side door near the back- do you have the wedding party process out through the partition, then have the guests go out the front side door, down the hall, then back through the back side door which- Tada! Is now a reception area (and the catering service has basically followed them into the ceremony space as they've exited it and is transforming the rest of it). Our other problem is chair numbers- we should have more than 70, but less than 140- so some people are going to need to vacate their seats so they can be moved to be reception seating. I think as long as people are taking their time exiting and entering this should work out swell, especially if theirs enough room in the back (already set up bit) for non relatives (ie those that won't be in the family shots- which can take place outside or wherever if we need to move from the front of the ceremony space) to sit.

Tldr: sounds like a good fix on the original plan, would like help on directing traffic out and back in.

JoanE2012 · May 2014

Wegl13 said:

That sounds like a great idea. Thank you! For this plan- what do you do with people during that bit of a transition, though? There's a side door near the front and a side door near the back- do you have the wedding party process out through the partition, then have the guests go out the front side door, down the hall, then back through the back side door which- Tada! Is now a reception area (and the catering service has basically followed them into the ceremony space as they've exited it and is transforming the rest of it). Our other problem is chair numbers- we should have more than 70, but less than 140- so some people are going to need to vacate their seats so they can be moved to be reception seating. I think as long as people are taking their time exiting and entering this should work out swell, especially if theirs enough room in the back (already set up bit) for non relatives (ie those that won't be in the family shots- which can take place outside or wherever if we need to move from the front of the ceremony space) to sit. Tldr: sounds like a good fix on the original plan, would like help on directing traffic out and back in.

I think the transition out one door and to the next is good. I would have or rent closer to the double number of chairs so you can have a decent amount already set up in the other room and then the staff can set up the remaining chairs and tables in the ceremony room when everyone is out and then the extra chairs can be stored. Even after setup is complete, you want to make sure you have extra chairs above your guest list if there are not assigned tables. This way no one is scrambling and left with just one random seat here or there. If you have to rent the chairs, it's a small price to pay to have everything in one place.

Jen4948 · May 2014

I know you said that the second option is not your favorite, but that's probably the best option because it doesn't require changing the room around. Just create a clear "aisle" with the tables and chairs and let it be known that the ceremony and reception venues are one and the same to avoid confusion.

MyNameIsNot · May 2014

Is it possible to set up a tent with heaters outside for either the ceremony or "cocktail hour" change over?

That won't work if it's super cold, but you can get away with it for an hour or so if it's 50-60 out.

theartistformerlyknownas · June 2014

MyNameIsNot said:

Is it possible to set up a tent with heaters outside for either the ceremony or "cocktail hour" change over?

That won't work if it's super cold, but you can get away with it for an hour or so if it's 50-60 out.

I would do this. Have your cocktail hour in the tent (get one that has walls you can use in case of rain/wind/super cold). Officiant will ask everyone to step outside for refreshments once the ceremony is over, you do your pictures and flipping, then invite everyone back inside. You can do your receiving line as they come back in, if you like.

Wegl13 · June 2014

I think extra chairs are in our budget, but not the tent set-up (especially as how anything like that would need to be transported ~2hrs). We also have quite a few older guests. It would be great if we could count on fair-ish weather but I don't want to have to worry about subjecting great-aunts and uncles to potentially cold/wet weather, even with the tent with walls. I think we're just going to go with having as much set up in the back area, have the transition happen quickly and smoothly, and then do everything we can to make the hallways and other little areas as comfortable as possible- basically the younger guests might have to mill around for 10-15 minutes but the older ones can have a cushy place to sit inside that I know will be warm and comfortable. I'm more worried about keeping my older guests comfortable than the younger. There's also two small side hallways and a couple of smaller classrooms (that were going to potentially be used as the grooms dressing area) that we could set up for people to hang out in (small tables, benches or chairs). I think if we keep the transition at around 15 minutes, that should work out okay.

When does it go from being a transition, "here's a seat and coffee, give me a couple seconds to put a table together for you" to being a gap, would you say? Is there a time limit? Or is it the environment?

theartistformerlyknownas · June 2014

If you're hosting your guests (giving them something to drink and nibble on) it's not a gap. It's a cocktail hour (or refreshment hour if it's dry). That's perfectly ok. If it's just "hang on a minute" of being uncomfortable and bored, you'll want to wrap it up in 15-20 minutes.

AddieCake · June 2014

I agree with Scribe. It's not all that confusing to sit at the tables for the ceremony. Out of the norm, sure, but not confusing. One of my cousins ended up having to do that b/c of rain, and I actually found it delightful.

tammym1001 · June 2014

We had our ceremony, cocktail hour, and reception all in one room that was not big enough for partitions. We had the reception set up and everyone sat at their dinner tables for the ceremony. There was someone at the door when guests came in to direct them to the escort card table to get their table number so there wasn't any confusion. Once the ceremony was over, H and I and the wedding party walked back down the aisle and outside to take pictures. The only thing that had to be moved was a small 36" cocktail table that had our sand ceremony on it and they pulled open the bar doors and cocktail hour started. We set up a cute spot outside to do our pictures so that our guests didn't have to move or be inconvenienced. The picture area was already set up before the ceremony and didn't need to be taken down until later so there was no moving things around for that. I don't know why but having chairs and tables moved around while my guests were trying to mingle and eat really bothered me. I didn't like how it was going to look or feel to people. I really liked having our ceremony set up this way and I will say that I did have to have the venue move the tables farther apart for the aisle because I was concerned about people having their chairs pulled out and me accidentally bumping into them. With some good planning you can make this option work just fine and I think it's the option that inconveniences your guests the least. ETA: I swear I put paragraphs in here when I wrote it. It isn't formatting correctly.

Need Some Help on Ceremony to Reception Transition

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